[MU] - FEELING LIKE A GHOST (PART II)

[lifeaftr_mods]

"No, no...no!"

The Storyteller's voice cuts through the inkdrop-dark, frantic and scrambling. A distant blot of campfire gutters in the far distance - far from where you are. The disorientation of the week preceding this one has translated into Mu, and everything is hopelessly out of place. The Storyteller sounds muffled, clearly addressing someone or something else, their voice cushioned by the uniform, void-like night.

"Stop it. Stop it! I wasn't gone for very long at all. You can't behave for two weeks? You have to make it all...all...wrong? I can't keep this up - not with what I've had to do since returning - !"

Gradually, however, the shadowy campsite solidifies into being. Or...a semblance of it does, in any case. Four glistening pyres rear out from the shadows, each glowing a different color. The strange material that domes them almost resembles worked steel, forming different patterns against their multicolored backdrops.

[ ♆ ] The first glows a deep crimson, kicking scarlet embers into the dream-night air. Its pit sphere portrays a crowd of people in silhouette, heads bowed in genuflection - paying homage to some looping, many-coiled shape in the sky above.

[ ♆ ] The second glows a deep orange. Its pit sphere is worked into the shape of a looming mountain, with what might be some sort of village or ruin sprawled at its base.

[ ♆ ] The third's flames are a rich green. Its designs are most abstract; the starburst patterns that swirl across the metallic composition of its fire pit sphere could be explosions, maybe...or something else entirely.

[ ♆ ] The fourth pyre is one bearing host to golden flames, amber sparks sprayed out from behind the shape of a set of scales nestled among a flurry of birdlike shapes.

Beside each pyre is heaped a pile of sticks, colored to correspond to their respective flames. The Storyteller sounds agitated when they manage to speak again:

"Will you let them at least make the choice I left to gave them?" When there is no response, they sigh. "If you can hear me...I can't make it clearer than that, at the moment. Pick one. Pick one, quickly, and try to get out before it decides to make things worse! Just add a stick to whichever one looks best to you!"

Unfortunately, whether you abstain from voting or make your choice, that's not all there is to this night...



Tonight's Storytelling, further warped by Mu's capricious nature, will likely feel familiar to those of you who were with us in December of the year prior. Only this time, you don't get much choice in what kind of story you're telling...or, indeed, any choice in the matter at all. As you wake by the Storytelling campfire, Mu shifts to form three separate events from your character's present - which is to say, within one full year of their current canonpoint - in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play. You will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

---

While the initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams, things will be far more similar to the memory share that occurred in December. All memories must be from within one year of your character's canonpoint. For questions, please refer to our OOC event post!

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. The memory does not need to be willingly recalled in essence in order for Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

Just like the last time this happened, all memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation. So at least there's that!

Comments

[want_to_belong]

It's okay.

[He reassured him. It was obvious enough what Shion was thinking of considering what they saw.]

That never happened. I'm not... sure where that is. I can guess. But it didn't happen.

[Though it looked depressing as hell. Last he remembered he was looking forward to seeing the guys again back home.]</small. 'm just glad Gladio and Iggy are back. That's what's important.

[savedbyasong]

Mine didn't happen either. [None of them. Three things that he has no memory of past the vague images from the mirror. He was being shown a future, a potential future. As was Prompto by the look of it.]

Futures can be changed.

[want_to_belong]

Yeah, they can be.

[He nodded, wanting fully to believe in their ability to make things better.]

There's no saying it's even likely futures. Can just be messing with us.

[savedbyasong]

Exactly. There are so many possible futures. We don't even know if we will escape here and even if we do... Who knows where we will end up. If we get back to our worlds anything could happen. The likelihood of this being true is very small.

[want_to_belong]

Mine can't be true because I don't even look like that anymore.

[New tattoo and all. He'd already made a permanent change.]

If we find an escape, I... don't want it to be a one-way ticket. I mean, there's too many people I'd still wanna see.

[savedbyasong]

[That very much assumed that the bodies they were in now were real, that when they returned to their worlds it would be in the bodies they were in now. But Shion holds his tongue. He doesn't want to add more issues to what is already a difficult night and Prom is upset enough.]

Yeah that's how I felt as well, when we escaped the Tower. I wanted to leave there but leaving everyone was so difficult... We spoke about finding a way to connect the worlds, obviously I ended up here instead but... It might be possible to find a way to travel. If we can be stolen from our worlds there must be a way...

[want_to_belong]

If only we knew how you got from there to here. There's gotta be something. There's hardly any people here, in comparison to the bajillion people who exist at home anyway, and here we have people who have been taken to other worlds before and people who know each other.

I just don't know where to look. Maybe we just have to start combing over every inch of the island.

[savedbyasong]

I don't know... I know we got there... A machine and a child who had very powerful psychic ability, able to draw souls from their worlds. We were travelling back home in the same manner when we ended up here.

[Likely they had been caught up in whatever force drew souls here.] We will find the answers though I'm not sure they are on Enso...

[want_to_belong]

The others islands keep coming and going so fast. I wonder how much information can be on them... If it is there, it's almost like it'll be impossible for us to get it all.

[savedbyasong]

Some of it might not be on the islands at all. The really important things. I doubt whoever is really behind us being here would have information where we can easily access it.

[want_to_belong]

[He glanced down thoughtfully for a moment.]

We'll figure it out someday.

[Who was he reassuring? It was hard to tell. But he patted Shion on the shoulder.]

We'll get it all sorted.

[savedbyasong]

Yes, we will. [They will escape. Shion is sure of it. They just need to find the answers first.]